FACTORS INFLUENCING TEACHING AND LEARNING IN COLLEGE OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY SCIENCES

ABSTRACT

Nursing education, including the individual nurse educator, has a responsibility to society and to students for providing quality education, for maintaining the highest academic standards, for the proficient use of teaching strategies and for ensuring adequate support to learners. This study aimed at investigating factors influencing teaching and learning at College of nursing and midwifery sciences, sokoto. The objectives included the following possible factors that may have contributed towards the academic performances of students:

· Approaches to teaching and learning;

· Motivation and learning;

· Language barrier to learning;

A non-experimental, descriptive research design was applied with a quantitative approach. The target population (N = 356) consisted of nursing students following the course leading to registration as a professional nurse. Stratified sampling was used to select the sample of participants (n = 70). A structured questionnaire, consisting of predominantly closed questions, was used for the collection of data. The outcomes from this study showed that academic support classes, when offered, were always attended by (n = 42/60%) and most times by (n = 24/34.2%).

The majority of the participants were able to cope with the workload most of the time (n = 43/61.4%), whilst (n = 6/8.6%) and (n = 2/2.9%) of the participants indicated coping seldom and never, respectively. The result of the study showed that most of the students spent the more time on their studies per day (3 and >3 hours). Few students (n = 5/7.1%) and (n = 13/18.6%) spent less time on their studies daily. Recommendations made by participants included the following:

• English as a subject / module during the first year was proposed.

• The promotion of the proficiency in English, through interaction between English speaking learners and students with English as second language, should be encouraged.

•Regular updates of the contents of the curriculum.

• The importance of identifying ‘at risk’ students and pro-actively introducing a mentorship program.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION.

1.1. Background of the study.

Teaching and learning is as old as human beings on earth. It is carried out not only by human beings but also by animals to teach their young ones to adjust successfully within their environments (Aggarwal, 2006). If the teaching and learning is effective, the learner will be able to make the best use of the things around him/her in the world.

In the past few years, Nursing education, as many other fields of study is undergoing fundamental changes in order to meet the needs of rapidly changing society. (Slevin and Lovery, 1991;Quinn, 1995). These changes entail the adoption of new roles for all those who are actively involved in nursing education: teachers, tutors, practitioners who act as mentors or preceptors for students in clinical practices. The significance influence on these changes has been the application of different teaching theories in nursing. In particular, Carl Rogers’ humanistic theory (1969) initiated a new approach to teaching and learning, widely used by many teachers and has been adopted as a philosophy by many academic institutions worldwide. Roger (1983) believed in the innate potentials for growth and development of each single individual. Bradshaw, (1989) supported the notion that the teachers’ role should be concerned with the facilitation of the learning experience.

A major challenge faces higher educational institutions on how to achieve quality outcomes for students in an increasingly globalised and competitive environment. Education is a reciprocal process during which the learners acquire knowledge, ability and self awareness in gaining diversity of thoughts. Nursing education is designed to educate and train the student nurse to become competent and qualified professional nurses (Melish, Brink and Paton, 2009). In order to provide skilled nursing and midwifery care, professional nurses and midwives must be educated and trained by qualified teachers to master certain skills and be knowledgeable about the science of nursing. They need appropriate knowledge and skills to enable them to deliver safe and competent care to their patients (Leufer, 2007).

Professional nurses enter the program with different expectation of what is to be learnt, different intellectual skills, types and levels of motivation and different interests. Furthermore, professional nurses and midwives also come from different cultures and backgrounds. Consequently, their educators/teachers who are responsible for educating and training them have a challenging task. So, this work “factors influencing teaching and learning in College of Nursing and Midwifery Sciences, Sokoto” is embarked on, to; highlight those general and remote factors that play major role in determining how teaching and learning takes place in College of Nursing and Midwifery sciences, Sokoto.

1.2. Statement of problems.

A decline in academic performance of students especially at College of Nursing and midwifery sciences, Sokoto was observed which adversely influence the admission and graduation of students. Recently, there has been problem of indexing, following the fact that students drop out of their classes to join their junior colleagues because they could not pass the number of courses required for promotion. This makes the number of students in those classes to be more than those that should be indexed by the nursing and midwifery council of Nigeria for the final qualifying examination (only 50 candidates are eligible to get index number per council exam).